The Crisis in a Nutshell: “A Dangerous New Phase” For Europe

“This is anxiousness, fear, it’s 2008 all over again. That crisis was about banks and the consumer, this is about countries.” —Damon Vickers, a Seattle-based hedge-fund manager

“You have a single currency, but you don’t have a single set of economic policies, and that’s created great difficulty.” —President Obama

“The markets want to force us to do certain things. That we won’t do.” —Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

“The German public still thinks that it has a choice about whether to support the euro or to abandon it. That is a mistake.” —George Soros, a Hungarian-American financier

“In light of the many rumors of the last days, it was stressed that Greece is an integral part of the eurozone. Greece is determined to meet all its commitments made with its partners.” —Elias Mossialos, Greek government spokesman

“We must let Greece go into bankruptcy.” —Richard Sulik, Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic

“You can’t expect anything to happen without giving [Greece] the capacity, the breathing space to be able to borrow.” —Timothy Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary

“Greece can always choose to leave. As long as all this is between freely consenting adults, it’s not that undemocratic.” —Charles Grant, director of the Centre for Economic Reform

“We have found it is extremely difficult to do anything concrete in a system that gives no power to the person who is in charge of the government.” —Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy